1. Field of the Invention
An embodiment of the present invention relates to an electronic device, an image processing apparatus, and a device control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as for office devices such as a laser printer (LP) and a digital multi-function peripheral (MFP) (hereinafter, simply referred to as an electronic device), reducing the electrical power consumption during operation or during standby operation mode has been preferred. Accordingly, the electronic device generally includes a power saving mode (also referred to as a sleep mode) that shuts off the electrical power supply to the load that is not used during the standby mode or delays the operation of a central processing unit (CPU).
An electronic device that includes a storage battery for accumulating electrical energy (electrical power) generated by energy generation technologies such as a photovoltaic cell, a fuel cell, motive power conversion, and thermoelectric conversion has been also known for recent years. In such an electronic device, in a normal operation mode, an apparatus operates with the electrical power supplied from the utility power supply serving as an alternating current (AC) power supply; and in a standby operation mode, the apparatus operates with the electrical power supplied from the storage battery. With this structure, the electrical power consumption of the utility power supply in the standby operation mode is intended to be 0 W.
In the related art, a digital MFP is also known that performs power saving processing in which the electrical power supply to the modules therein such as a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, and an encryption chip of a network interface card (NIC) are stopped, when a processing load of a network service request such as a color scanning request is small (refer to Japanese Patent No. 4275168).
In the above-described energy generation technologies, however, the conversion efficiency is low, being 10 to 15% as for a photovoltaic cell and 20 to 30% as for thermoelectric conversion, for example. Thus, it takes a much time to accumulate electrical power into the storage battery. Moreover, the electrical power accumulated in the storage battery is consumed in a short time. For this reason, in the electronic device that operates with the electrical power accumulated in the storage battery without using the electrical power supplied from the utility power supply in the standby operation mode described above (also referred to as a non-consuming system for energy saving), if the electrical power of the storage battery is used continuously for operations during the standby such as a network response in the standby operation mode, the electrical power of the storage battery is exhausted in a short time. When the electrical power of the storage battery is exhausted, the electronic device operates with the electrical power supplied from the utility power supply. Therefore, in the related art, the time period in which the power consumption of the utility power supply is 0 W in the standby operation mode (also referred to as non-consuming for energy saving) is short, whereby a problem occurs in that energy saving cannot be fully achieved.
The problem also occurs even if the technology disclosed in the Japanese Patent No. 4275168 described above is applied to the non-consuming system for energy saving.
There is a need to provide an electronic device, an image processing apparatus, and a device control method capable of achieving further energy saving than the related art by maintaining a longer time period in which the power consumption of the utility power supply is 0 W in the standby operation mode.